STCM Podcasts

On this episode of Museum Chat Live!, hear the dramatic and rarely-told story of a major strike closed shipyards across Niagara in the summer of 1861, and how the story has been turned into a play by the students at Governor Simcoe Secondary School.

On this episode of One Hour in the Past Kathleen and Adrian discuss their research into the secretive and mysterious Family Compact, which with their control of the governing Tory Party, concentrated power in their small group in Upper Canada between ~1800 and 1841.

We end the Canal Crossings miniseries on a lighter note, to “lift us up” if you will, and explore a few community stories involving canal crossings in our history. We hope that these stories give you a smile, probably a head shake, and ideally a reminder that our community would not be same without these canal crossings.

Welcome to Season 3 of One Hour in the Past. In season one we explored a wide range of topics from the Arts and Crafts Movement to Thanksgiving. In season two we welcomed guests to join us for a trip down the rabbit hole as we researched topics like photography, sidewalks, and telephones. We’re taking this third season of the podcast down a bit of a different path. We’ll be diving a bit deeper into Canadian history by researching Prime Ministers, Maps and mapping, the Family Compact, the Fur Trade, the FLQ Crisis, and on today’s episode: the history of printing.

In this episode of Museum Chat Live! we are talking to Mayor Walter Sendzik who tells us about his trip to the Netherlands and Bergen op Zoom in October 2019 to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands and the contributions of local soldiers in that campaign. Kathleen Powell and Adrian Petry will also chat about St. Catharines and the home front during the Second World War and about how the city welcomed its soldiers home to the community.

On this episode of Museum Chat Live, your cohost Sara and special guest, Des, dig into the darker history that surrounds the canal crossings – the tragic accidents involved in bridge construction and maintenance, and other bridge disasters. We turn our attention to this grim part of Welland Canal history in honour of the National Day of Mourning for Workers Killed or Injured in the Workplace held on April 28.

On this episode of Museum Chat Live!, your co-host Sara chats with special guest, Des Corran, about the canal crossings in-use today. We explore not only the surviving bridges from when the Welland Canal opened in 1932, but also the construction of the underwater tunnels and the Garden City Skyway.

On this episode: Kathleen and Adrian look at the history of stuffed animals and Teddy Bears. It's a hilarious discussion of toys, President Teddy Roosevelt, music, and Furbie. Join them as they take this deep dive into the history of our fuzzie-wuzzie friends.

Most of the time, when we think of the bridges on the Welland Canal, we think of being stuck at them. The many bridges that cross the canal from Port Weller to Port Colborne are often just thought of as part of the infrastructure that gets us from Point A to Point B- with sometimes a wait in between. But, when you are stuck at a bridge, waiting for a ship to pass, have you ever really thought about what that bridge represents? We can actually tell so many stories and explore our history in new ways by talking about the crossing points on the Welland Canal.

In early 2019, the St. Catharines Museum opened a temporary exhibition called Outbreak. The exhibit explores the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic and tells a larger story about public health and disease in St. Catharines and Canada. We opened Outbreak to commemorate 100 years since the influenza pandemic, but we could have never guessed just how relevant this exhibit would become in light of the global pandemic we are currently facing.

We discuss the history of photography and talk about the oldest images in the Museum’s collection. This image of an unknown child is one of the oldest in our collection.

Listen and gain ideas of how you can use your #stayhome time to dig into your family history! Starting a family history "isolation project" is a great opportunity for you to pass the extra time you are having at home in a meaningful, constructive way and to learn more about your family history.